But also, owning a gun could save your life.

And frankly, posing a society-wide risk that's simply not worth it.

Particularly given that if guns were sensibly controlled (e.g., as in Australia), the risk that you perceive justifying arming yourself would shrink (probably -- I don't know your unique circumstances) to nearly nothing.

And you have been told this numerous times.

Abstract http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301409

Report on this in Huff Post

Brady Campaign page on this subject

Will you pay attention this time ...

"Will you pay attention this time"



I'm an adult and can make up my own opinions.Thanks for the laugh though!

You're blocked btw. Not falling for flamebait.

Evidence that has been put to the gun lovers several times.

We need gun control laws, not banning guns.

I recognize shades of grey, but I am sure as hell not going to pretend that guns save lives when the reality shows they clearly kill far more than they save.

There was a time in my life I would love to forget. Anyway, so far I haven't been able to.
If I was armed at that time, it wouldnt have happened.

I disagree that guns don't save lives. I survived what happened to me, but a part of me died and I will never be able to take it back.

Depends on what, if anything an opinion is based and how carefully thought out it is.

So that.

An opinion that is made up is worse than subjective. It's worthless.

An opinion based on facts that has been well thought out may still be subjective, but it is not worthless.

Read my post above.
It took me a very long time to be Okay again and even let someone touch me.
I could be never lobby against the second amendment. Never.

Had I been armed, it wouldn't have happened.

that does not alter the statistics.

Crime victims who are armed have been overpowered by unarmed criminals and killed with their own guns, too.

At no point did I tell you not to have a gun, if that is why you feel you need to do.

"An opinion that is made up is worse than subjective. It's worthless.
An opinion based on facts that has been well thought out may still be subjective, but it is not worthless"

You assumed my opinion is "made up". Well, it's based on truth. I'm done here. Have a nice life.

statement to which I responded. These were your words, from your own post #39 upthread.

"I'm an adult and can make up my own opinions."

I never assumed a thing about your opinions. Keying off your own words, I made general statements about made up opinions.

And you said : "An opinion that is made up is worse than subjective. It's worthless. "

Like I said, have a nice life.

Responding to your words, I contrasted an opinion that was merely made up with one based on facts and reasoning. The point was simply that it's better to base an opinion on something than to make it up. I don't know how anyone can disagree with that statement.

If you can't tell that she meant "make up her own mind" or "come to her own conclusion", you need to put away the hate of guns because it sounds like you are telling a rape survivor that her opinion on why she needs or wants self defense doesn't fit your view of the world. That her opinion, that she came to by being raped, is invalid

If this weren't an issue about guns you would probably have people jumping down your throat right now.

Go ahead and spin it all you want

I posted nothing out of the way. BTW, when I posted about opinions vs. statistics, I had not even seen her post about being a rape survivor.

You may have statistics that show owning a gun increases the probability of death or injury. That's just a statistical probability, though.

But on an individual level, a gun can theoretically save her life.

It is like the old observation that some people who suffered from tuberculosis had non-malignant cancers go into remission. This did not make it sensible to deliberately infect such cancer sufferers with tuberculosis.

eyes, apologizing to me for not doing it before.

He has always kept both his hand gun and rifle well hidden, but all I can assume is someone
where he worked must have had a tragic accident with an unlocked gun and it left it's
mark on my husband.

He has never told me why he suddenly locked his weapons, but I am glad, very glad he did.

Tikki

It should be law that safe storage is mandated. Solves two problems: 200,000 plus guns stolen every year and end up in criminal's hands AND kids play with guns.

I wonder how many gun owners are TARGETED by thieves? Bad neighbors are common.

It can still be manipulated and pulled such that the trigger can be depressed.

Use this style:




That way the gun is known to be unloaded and safe. Many police departments hand them out for free.
http://www.rehobothwatch.com/ProjectHomeSafe.html

I loaded and fired a handgun that had a trigger lock installed. The trigger lock does not prevent loading and often cannot squeeze tight enough on the sides to prevent the center bar from depressing the trigger if pulled backwards. Lock cable or safe is the way to go.

I completely agree.

Soon as I get back to my home state, those are replacing all three of my trigger locks.

Thanks for the info.

People just need to use them.

But a lot of people like myself have never bought a gun that included them. I bought my last gun over a decade ago. Everything else I own is handed down from grandfather/father, including the hunting rifle.

Heavy safes (650#+), bolted to wall and floor.

because they won't have time to reload with 10-round clips.

"Lock the gun? But then the massive army of Evil Doers™ will get to me before I can unlock it!!!!!"

I have served in the military and I have owned guns, but I have never needed one.
I now live in the middle of a large wilderness area in the northwest with plenty of large four legged critters and I still haven't needed a gun.

During a recent spat of sub-zero weather, i went to the local grocery store and there a number of vehicles in the parking lot running while the owners were inside the store shopping.

You may be able to get by with such a thing if you don't advertise it, but making such information public is a bad idea. The internet is not as anonymous as many people think. I would suggest self deleting your post.

One good kick would open most any locked door anyways.

Now, if I lived in a more urban area, I'd probably be in the habit of locking up the house or apartment at night or when I leave.

If I lived in a more populated area and it was the norm to lock up one's home, I wouldn't post that info.

to find an unlocked one, moving to the next when one is locked.

Of an expanded view of the Second Amendment should be in favor of this. Like any other tool, guns should be used safely, and safety training should be mandatory for anyone who chooses to exercise their right to own a firearm.

Properly used, guns are considerably safer than automobiles and swimming pools. The problem the U.S. has is all the morons who buy one as a substitute for the tininess of their built-in one.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

I know you are going to try to pull out some meaningless statistic about how swimming pools kill more kids than guns, but that is only because there are a lot more children who use swimming pools than there are children who go shooting. If a child gets their hands on a loaded gun they are far more likely to be killed than if they play in a swimming pool.

There are also far more kids who ride in cars than there are kids who go shooting, yet soon shootings will kill more children than car accidents despite the fact that cars are used far more often than guns.

If you seriously believe that guns are safer than cars or swimming pools you most certainly are not a member of the reality based community.

...you think there are more swimming pools in the U.S. than there are guns. This is untrue. There are considerably more guns in the US than citizens. You can't say remotely the same thing about swimming pools. And if you have one, the chance of a child dying due to it is massively higher than if you happen to have a firearm around. Period. Further, you can exercise reasonable precautions around a pool, and yet still have a child die in one. But even the slightest degree of non-idiocy regarding firearms renders them utterly harmless.

I certainly see why you are choosing "guns taken to the firing range" as your divisor for making an argument about gauging safety. If you don't, your argument falls apart. However going by that logic, we can make guns far more safe, simply by trucking millions of Americans down to a firing range and showing them around. It wouldn't change overall deaths, but it would make the deaths per firing range visit lower. (Let me also explain something else. Ranchers rarely drive to a firing range for fun. Shooting prairie dogs, to keep them from digging holes that cattle can break their legs in, is work; better work than many things you have to do on a ranch, but still work.)

The screaming about guns really comes from two things: 1] those few gun deaths from massacres we has are ripe for media exploitation, which naturally gives people a complete misunderstanding of risks in their day-to-day lives. And 2] It is yet another issue to let urban culturally-liberal Americans feel sanctimonious and superior over their rural brethren.

No news is ever run about the many hundreds of yearly deaths due to unbuckled children, but you can be absolutely assured that if they did, there would be a new "massacre" reported every month. We'd save far more children's lives than outlawing guns, by imposing a mandate of making every single car have to have a car seat built in, whether the buyer had kids or not. But that's not something that makes anyone feel smug about pushing, now is it?

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

I never said there were more swimming pools than guns, I said that more kids use swimming pools than use guns. You completely misrepresent my words while pretending to be reality based, because if you actually were to acknowledge reality it would undermine your ideology.

We are not talking about a "few gun deaths" from mass shootings as you suggest, we are talking about 30,000 gun deaths every single year. No one even mentioned mass shootings, but then again you are not reality based so you pretend that your opponents arguments are much more narrow than they actually are.

We already do mandate that all cars transporting children have car seats in them, it makes no sense to require new cars to be equipped with car seats however because different sizes of kids require different types of car seats. You would know this if your views actually were reality based, but conservatives are usually not too good at recognizing reality.

Your assertion is that swimming pools are safer "only because there are a lot more children who use swimming pools than there are children who go shooting." That is a direct quote of yours, so please don't pretend that you can disavow it.

From that statement it is easy to discern that you have conflated the idea of 'risk from normal use', with 'risk of mere possession'. However, most drowning deaths don't happen from normal use. Toddlers generally die in pools when no one is around.

For me to "misrepresent" your position, you would have to be advocating to outlaw - not guns - but firing ranges. However, since you're clearly advocating for guns to be outlawed, the correct equivalency to swimming pools is for them to be outlawed (not restrictions made on when children can use them), and the correct comparison needs to be "is having a gun safer than having a swimming pool?", not "is using a gun (on a firing range) safer than using a swimming pool?"

Insofar as the total number of gun deaths in the U.S. are concerned, you're aware that 2/3rds of them are suicide, right? And that there are many other ways of committing suicide? What are you going to campaign against next, sleeping pills?

Also, mandating that parents must buy a car seat (which they often don't) is different than mandating that every car come equipped with a built in child-seat (which could be hidden away when not in use). We don't have laws that "mandate" drivers go out and buy seat belts. We just force manufacturers to put them in.

Finally, you keep on attacking me over my use of the "Reality based community" as if this is some great victory of rhetoric. I suggest you go google that phrase a bit before you continue down this path, because your clear lack of knowledge about where it came from is sadly amusing (especially in regards to you asserting that I don't know things). We may disagree on this issue, but I (and many others like me who support the 2nd Amendment) are still Democrats.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

I did say that there are a lot more children who use swimming pools than use guns, and I am in no way disavowing that statement because it is obviously true. What I am disavowing is your false claim that I "think there are more swimming pools in the U.S. than there are guns." I never made such a claim and you know it. Saying more kids use swimming pools is not the same thing as saying there are a higher quantity of swimming pools, the fact is that many swimming pools are used by hundreds or even thousands of kids. There are many more kids who go swimming than there are that go shooting and most of those kids don't own pools.

You now seem to want to limit the discussion to shooting ranges, but I never said anything about shooting ranges. Most shootings do not happen on shooting ranges so I don't see how they are relevant.

You misrepresent me again when you say I am "clearly advocating for guns to be outlawed", I never claimed such a thing but you are so divorced from reality that you need to misrepresent my position because you can't argue against my real position.

I am well aware of where the term "reality based community" comes from but your views are not in tune with reality so I am not going to let you claim to be reality based while you promote absurd ideas.

We used to own guns... one person died because of that.

There have been 3 suicides by gun in my neighborhood over the last 3 years. There have been no deaths by drowning in a pool even though we have a buttload of pools. I will give you the stat that one guy broke his neck by diving into a too-shallow pool.

A class III federal license allows you to own fully automatic, short barreled weapons, and suppressors. One of the main requirements for the license is a built in heavy vault.

Military style magazine fed weapons need to be vault stored, separately from the ammunition and magazines.

You want to take away our God-given right to die prematurely.

I was raised in a rural area where home invasions were virtually non-existent, yet the homes of most of my childhood friends were filled with loaded guns. Many people kept one by the door and one next to their bed. It was very common to see people with a gun rack in the back window of their pickup with a fully loaded rifle. I can't remember how many times I've heard gun nuts tell me there's nothing more useless than an unloaded gun. In the vast majority of these cases, nobody ever gets hurt, but the reality is that countless children pay the price for this utter stupidity because there's just so many of these dipshits out there. It's important to remember that the reason these dipshits do this is because of extreme paranoia, and no PSA is going to override it.

er....flyby?
Drone predecessor I assume.

"Back in my day, we had to do these things with our own hands."

Guns are just a symbol of "security" for some people.

Doesn't really provide security. Just makes people feel better. Like stocking up on duct tape before Armageddon.

--some people would say it works, psychologically speaking, up to a point.

You invest an object with the power to protect you, even when there is no guarantee whatsoever that it can protect you. So the value is largely symbolic and a placebo for the real security we wish we had.

Until the "protection" backfires on you, so to speak.

And that is exactly what such courses would become.

Now, I'd be for it if the course were designed to teach kids guns are for losers and just leave the dang things alone like bombs, biological contaminants, pit vipers, etc.

I suppose the courses recommended would be taught by some right winger certified by the NRA.

I can't understand how one could be against this!

Although, for all of the gun proponents talk of being "responsible gun owners," every day the body count of the innocents rises and rises and rises. EVERY attempt at legislating ANY sanity into our handling of these DEADLY WEAPONS is met with ridiculous outcries from those that hold these tools of death and destruction with a sick fetishists regard.

That flies in the face of FBI crime statistics over the last 30 years. Crime rates are down, not up.

.. the obvious truth is that trigger locks used EVERY TIME would prevent an untold number of needless tragedies.

But since those needless tragedies continue to occur on a daily basis, the gun nut claims of being "responsible gun owners" is a study in cognitive dissonance.

Aren't you needed in Nevada to "fight for FREEDUMB?"

I'm not taking your flamebait.

That means the body count rises every time a person dies, even if the rate of deaths is on the decline.

For example: every time an American soldier dies in Afghanistan, the body count of American soldiers killed in that conflict rises by one, even if fewer soldiers (and thankfully, of late, NO soldiers) are dying each day.

So yes, the body count for Americans dead of gun violence is rising. It will never fall---not unless you and your fellow gun enthusiasts figure out a way to raise the dead.

Seems fairly easy for anyone of at least average intelligence to understand, but then we're dealing with a gun "enthusiast."

'Nuf said.

is it not? In the same respect, one could accurately say that the body count from polio rises every year, giving the impression that we're losing the fight against it, when in fact the rate has dropped enormously over the last century due to the vaccine.

As for your analogy to polio, fortunately, there was no pro-polio lobby back in the 1950s to argue against developing the vaccine--although in some parts of the world the polio rate is in fact rising, due to anti-science nutters who see vaccines as a form of western imperialism.

On the other hand, if by making this analogy you're saying we should treat gun violence as a public health issue, I'm all for it,

Tens of thousands of people are dying every single year from guns and it is not at all pointless to recognize their deaths.

... is it still "pointless?" How about your siblings? Parents? Your best friend and their family?

Pointless, indeed.

... not taking your flamebait you fail to understand?

Toddler shoots a toddler. Ten year old shoots a ten year old. These things happen every day - I know because I track them - and they are deemed "accidents," and no charges are filed, either against the children or against their parents.

So all those dead kids don't wind up being noted in your "dropping" crime rates.

But they're still dead. Every single day.

I bought a gun. I bought a separate lock-box for the gun and the ammo. I bought a trigger guard for the gun and also a locking strap that attaches the gun to the inside of the locked case. All this stuff cost about $100.00. I store the gun box in one place and the bullet box in another place and the keys for this stuff in a locked filed cabinet.

Should someone break-in my house my family and I will be dead long before I even found the keys to open and assemble anything.

The criminals know all this. They can pretty much come up to anyone's house with or without a gun, break-in the house (particularly with the new windows) and do what they want. The police will respond anywhere between five minutes and two days. You have a slightly higher chance of being shot by the police coming to investigate your break-in than by the break-in perp himself.

I showed the cop five house down street my gun and ancillaries. He LHMFAO.

Because freedom?

I know plenty who only own guns for the sole purpose of shooting them at the range once a year. They keep them locked up in safes the rest of the time.

think I'm back in Chu Lai in firefight. But I am glad for the people who enjoy doing that.

Basically, for one reason. I believe the government under the direction of an oligarchy aided and abetted by the last four presidents is in the process of a takeover of the country turning us into a pure fascist State. When they come for my wife and myself, we will die fighting for that which died long long ago.....:America. That's what we'll do. Whatever you want to do when the time comes is entirely your business--as long as it does not affect me and mine.

I've fought in two wars for this country. I've worked all my life helping people, as has my wife even more so. Married forty-four years, we have raised a daughter who has done okay, who we will be meeting today for Easter, which we still celebrate despite the many on this board who do not because they no longer believe in God. Why exactly would I let someone who closes their post with an icon with rolling eyes know anything about anything?

... with the ridiculous fantasy you have that you, your wife, and your personal "arsenal" are somehow going to intimidate "the government under the direction of an oligarchy" should they decide they have had their fill of you?

An icon of rolling eyes barely scratches the surface of just how silly that mentality is.

"...my family and I will be dead long before I even found the keys to open and assemble anything."

I'm not trying to be a dick. It's just that you said that gun is all but useless for self defense

I'm trying to figure out how you're fucked if criminals come after you, but if it's the big bad government then you're ready. What's the difference whether it's the good guys or the bad guys kicking down your door?

(I've lived my whole life in urbia and suburbia, where cops don't move any slower than crooks, so maybe it's just something I'm not getting about your situation.)

as part of a raid on common people because of some made up broken law or if they are just cracking down, then that has nothing to do with perps or the police that come looking for wrong doers. No if the government comes as part of a raid on everybody, I need to go down fighting. It just may be something you don't understand. No, I don't think you're being a dick. Your questions are honest. I want to go down a soldier and a free man. You probably think it would be better to surrender and take my chances

I see it's some kind of combination lock but how does that lock up a gun?